Here I sit...

...next to my loving husband as he works on his homework. He is currently defining a huge list of cooking terms, such as the official meaning for words like "dice" and "broth" or foreign words I've never heard of like "brunoise" or "chiffonade." Of course most of the foreign words are French, we know how the French love their food. Even after he tells me what they mean, I don't remember, but I can pronounce it all! He had his first classes last Monday and Tuesday (ALL DAY LONG) and his comments indicated that he was not discouraged from loving it or being excited, but it was going to be a LOT of work. He has night classes both nights until 11pm, and right now he is commuting over an hour one way, so I basically don't see him Mondays or Tuesdays. So far he has a wild story about one student cutting the tip of his finger off... ew. Culinary school is not for crystals. I'm praying every day that all of Corey's fingers stay intact. He's made some potatoes this week, practicing the special cuts. It really is quite exciting.

In other news, I decided to stay for now with my current job (DMH Mechanical). The job market is... awful, to pick one adjective, and I will not have worked at DMH for one year until July. Most administrative jobs require at least 1 year of experience. So while I am only working 20 hours a week right now, I have the assurance of returning to full time when the summer heat starts up. You know, when stores and companies' air conditioning quits and their customers leave, they'll call us. I also have picked up one voice student (YAY!!) in Wheatland, and I am sure that I can aquire more because of my dad's choir and band students if I knew I could commit to being in Wheatland weekly. I have no networking in Sacramento to begin teaching lessons, and I can charge much more independently than I could with an agency. So all that to say that working at DMH while teaching lessons in Wheatland could work out really nicely. We'll see how it goes once we move in 3 weeks, get settled, see what kind of part-time job Corey gets, etc. But I am very happy to settle with DMH for now, I like working there and I like being good at what I do. It would be sad to have to learn another company and be "new" at a job again.

We had a wonderful Easter last weekend, celebrating with both mine and Corey's parents all at once! We played games and ate WAY too much food. I surprised Mr. Husband Man with an Easter basket full of goodies that I had been planning for several weeks. I had strategically hidden everything in the trunk of the car (there's nowhere to hide anything in this itty-bitty house) and when I woke up Sunday morning, I tried VERY hard to sneak out of bed, throw a sweatshirt on, slip on Corey's Rainbows and make it out to the car without him waking up. I made it all the way out to the car and back inside when I realized there was one more thing out in the car that I forgot, and in my process of sneaking out again, he woke up and looked at me in my jammies and sweatshirt and hood sneaking out the door and said "What on earth are you doing?" I pouted and said, "Go back to sleep and don't look!" then finished his basket. Almost made it. But he was a happy boy, and he didn't even suspect ahead of time that he would get a basket. :) Here is our first married Easter picture:

Yes, we both got haircuts. Corey had to trim his beard further than this picture for school. I'll admit I like the shaggy version of Mr. Man just a little bit better, but I s'pose keeping beard hair out of the food he makes sounds reasonable. And as for my haircut, I really wanted something that would help me look older, I am 23 for goodness sakes, not in high school. (I know you're thinking, "Be happy you look younger, you'll wish it was that way in a few years, haha"). Ba-humbug, I want people to respect me as a professional adult. I'm not sure if the haircut accomplishes this or not... we'll see.

Psychic Spring Hitchhikers

This is my current favorite wedding picture for your viewing pleasure:
(our photographers website here)



There's not a whole lot to report since my last post... Corey starts school in two weeks. He got his schedule, and he will be at school ALL day Mondays and Tuesdays (until 11pm). That will definitely be different! We are stoked, though. We are going to his orientation on the first of April and he gets his cool knife set and fun uniform, hehe. Our job situation is the same, but we quit the petitions job. It was just too much. Instead of relying on that income, I applied for unemployment because I am only working part time. It's temporary until I can find a real job, hopefully after we move. There are definitely hard days where it is easy to loose sight of the wonderful things, but the Lord is continually providing for us.

Also, I LOVE spring. I always forget how much I love it until it is here. I love the sun and I love tree blossoms. It's just such a hopeful time of year, what a wonderful time to begin our new adventure!

In our spare time, Mr. Man and I have been watching a LOT of Psych. We are humungonous Psych fans. And of course, we are still playing WiiFit... I love doing the Yoga. I wish I would have had it in college! It would have helped so much with singing!!

In other random news, I picked up a hitchhiker the other day. I have always secretly wanted to... I know, I'm strange... I was on my way home from work, and a very harmless lady was standing there with just her purse. I motioned her to come into the car and drove about 10 minutes to the gas station in Penn Valley and dropped her off there. It was rather uneventful... she talked about how her son wouldn't give her a ride anymore and something about getting outside. She had very slurred speech, so I'm still not quite sure of her story. She offered to pay me for gas when we got to the Chevron, which I guiltily pondered for a minute, but assured her that she didn't need to. What would be the point of picking up a hitchhiker if they were going to pay you!

The Next Chapter...

Well, I have been waiting to post for several weeks about some big new things, and I finally have the opportunity to! :)

Exciting thing #1: My husband is officially going to culinary school.

This is something that was lurking in the back of Corey's head for a while as something he would always love to do, and after he was having trouble finding work, it seemed like a nice thought. When he first mentioned it to me, I was a little surprised, but we started looking into it. We ended up picking the Art Institute of California - Sacramento, and we just got word on Thursday that he was accepted. Of course, we'd already had a meeting where we saw the campus, he'd been measured for a uniform, and everything was in place but the actual acceptance letter... therefore the delay in being able to tell the world! He is enrolled in the Art of Cooking program, which lasts for 5 quarters (1 year and 3ish months) and awards a diploma. After talking to some people we trust, we decided this was the best option to jump-start a cooking career for Mr. Man. We are SO excited! We are trusting Jesus to provide financially as we have confidence that this is His plan. Corey starts April 5th.

Exciting thing #2: We are moving to Sacramento!

Penn Valley to Sacramento is just over an hour. Therefore, for Corey to try to go to school there AND hold a part time job, we needed to move to Sacramento. This was only reiterated when I was moved to part-time at my job. The city will provide so many more opportunities! We went a couple weeks ago to apply at an apartment complex in the Natomas area (the nicer part) and we officially put on hold an apartment for move-in on May 1st! Unfortunately it could not be earlier because our lease here is not up until April. BUT we are SO elated about this apartment. It has a dishwasher, washer and dryer, DOORS inside the house, a REAL kitchen sink... It's one bedroom for an extremely reasonable price. The complex is gated with pools and tennis courts (which we are excited about) and even a fitness center. We can't see why we would ever want to move! Well, that's a slight exaggeration, but compared to where we are now, it's going to be paradise. So we just have to wait for two months... meaning for one month Corey will need to commute.

Slightly difficult thing #1 - My job situation

I need a new job! Especially because Corey will be in school, I need a job that will pay me well and that has benefits. We are currently living without health insurance and that is not comfortable! I have a grand dilemma about whether to look for work in Sacramento starting now, 2 months before we move, and commute VERY far, or to find alternate methods of floating above water until the move. So far, it looks like the latter.

Slightly difficult thing #2 - One of those "alternate methods"

For the last week or so, Corey and I have been sitting in front of stores asking people to sign signatures on CA petitions. We decided to do it because it pays almost $1 per signature, and we were assured we could make 400ish a week doing it part time. (So if someone asks you to sign in the next month or so, don't hate them) There are several problems with this, however... the first major one being that we hate it. I can pretend wonderfully that I like "sales" but I really really dislike it. I thought I enjoyed it for a while, but the pressures of persuading people to do something really caught up to me. Corey is not a people person whatsoever, so we are very unfit for this. Also, we pretty much don't like politics at all, judge as you will. So the angry voters out there try to argue with us about issues, and we really don't know what they're talking about. On top of all that, it's not proving to be as lucrative as we anticipated. Probably because we are bad at it. So do we quit? Or "suck it up, cupcake!"

Slightly difficult thing #3 - We are increasingly disliking our little residence.

The Lord gives us strength and I am grateful to have a place to live, but it just compounds our difficult situation to live in a place like this! We are fairly confident the neighbors (to whose house we are attached) are growing marijuana and it constantly smells. The walls are very thin and they have been doing work on the room with the shared wall to our place, so there is constant banging and we can hear everything they're saying. We don't like to think that they can hear us though, or we might go crazy from lack of privacy. The smallness of the place gets very noticeable as soon as we've been too busy to do the dishes for a couple days because you can't stack them in the small sink!

Exciting thing #4 - We have picked up tennis

We love tennis, and we've been playing it, especially since I work part time! I'm so lucky to has a husband who can love a non-sporty klutz trying to play tennis. :)

Exciting thing #5 - We got WiiFit!

We actually only got it yesterday, as the entirety of NorCal has been out of stock since my birthday, when I was originally s'posed to get it. It is AWESOME! I will probably write more on it later, as I haven't played it quite enough yet... but so far the rhythm kung-fu is rather amazing.

Slightly difficult thing #4 - I miss music.

My soul aches every day at the thought of teaching music and going back to school, but now is not the time. (I did pick up one voice student though!! YAY!) I am holding out for a little bit of hope that my next job could possibly be in a school somewhere? And yes, I've thought about substitute teaching, it's on the potentials list. :)

Overall point - God has an amazing adventure planned for us!

Although "times is hard," and the next two months are going to be interesting, we are so excited for what's on the horizon. We praise God for being in control of our marriage adventure and for providing for our needs. Moving to Sacramento also means we will need to find a new church, and we know that He already has one waiting for us to dive in! He is so good, and we are so grateful to Him!

Thorny ways

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

- Verses 1 and 2 of the Hymn "Be Still My Soul"
Words: Katharina von Schlegel, 1752. Music: Jean Sibelius, 1899

I need these words this week, and probably the next two months. More on that later, for now I can tell you that I got demoted to part time work this week, so my husband is still unemployed and I only have a part time job. Good thing Jesus is in control, and I fully believe that.

Compassion

Wikipedia defines "compassion" as a human emotion prompted by the pain of others.

I've been praying for the Lord to open up His compassion for people in my heart. In my own world of hardships, my heart had closed to those I didn't know. I could feel for people I knew, people close to me, but beyond that no sorrow touched my heart.

The world is lost without Jesus. The world is suffering... whether it is physical suffering such as starvation or disease, or whether it is inner suffering of a soul tormented by no hope. I want to care.

You might be thinking how harsh that is. How could I not care that people are hurting? How could I not want to share what has given me life, hope, assurance? I'm human, and I have learned in this life that humans are depraved (besides it being Biblical). I've hardened myself with the idea that those without Jesus just WANT it that way. I've been turned away from compassion by people trying to force Christ's rules on others, rather than sharing Christ himself. And as for the physical suffering, it was easy to pretend it didn't exist.

I have not made any huge strides in this area, but the Lord has started opening my heart at least to the suffering of the people of Haiti. Imagining having no water, food, shelter... AND no hope in a God who can save you? I don't have a lot of money or even emotional energy to commit to helping the people of Haiti, but the Lord has laid on my heart the desire to give what little I can, especially in prayer. This is new. Even though the Lord has given Corey and me very little these days, we are thriving compared to others.

The Lord has used people like Angela Fairfield and her fiery passion for the people of Haiti to open my eyes. She told me about a small orphanage in Haiti that takes in groups of siblings so they don't have to be separated. The organization is called Bosko, their website is here, and they are not only helping their orphans, but their community in the aftermath of the earthquake. It helps me to have a specific, personal group to connect with.

This post is not to guilt trip anyone into doing anything, just sharing my heart. If you happen to be interested then it's Jesus' doing, not mine.

"Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." Colossians 3:12-13

23 Birfday Things

So yesterday was my birfday, I turned 23, and I thought a fun way to tell everyone (like the 3 people that read this) about the event would be in 23 points:

1. I still had to get up at 6am and go to work, but I got to hug my husband and hear him sleepily mumble "happy birthday, my love"

2. The toaster oven smoked a little in the morning because there was cheese on the heating element and because our place is so small, it set the smoke alarm off at 7:15am. Poor Mr. Man.

3. I wore my cream colored sweatshirt to work, and after getting in the car, promptly put my elbow right on my peanut butter toast and got peanut butter EVERYWHERE, staining the dang sweatshirt. I am never as klutzy as I am in that sweatshirt. Why is that?!

4. The sky was beautiful on the way to work... the end of the sunrise made the blanket of clouds gold and blue.

5. I made at least 2 really stupid mistakes within the first 10 minutes of work, and had to call people back and feel like a fool.

6. Our fax machine went down, and I spent almost all day on the phone with Comcast. Apparently, AT&T STOLE our fax number that we've had for 3 years. Nobody at Comcast wanted to do their job yesterday. Good grief.

7. My boss took me to Chili's for lunch because it was my birthday. I got a chicken wrap thing that was AWESOME. It's one of their new menu items. I love Chili's.

8. I left work 5 minutes late because the fax line was still down, by the end of the day it was sort of humorous, but we lost a lot of business.

9. My parents, Cathryn, and Rob (my siblings) were waiting outside of my work when I walked out to sing me happy birthday and give me balloons. :) Surprise! (we had already celebrated officially on Saturday) Note: driving with balloons in the car is very interesting.

10. They reminded me about the fact that they're still trying to find someplace that has Wii Fit in stock, and that I will get it soon (they didn't get it in time for my birthday). YAY! I have to quit Curves because we don't have the money, now I have an alternative method of exercise and fun. hehe.

11. Mr. Man called me and asked me to pick up plastic wrap and "whatever I wanted to drink with dinner" on my way home. I bought cherry coke. (We've had a little too much Dr. Pepper lately, or else I woulda chosen that)

12. The drive home must have taken a million hours longer than normal... I knew my husband had made me dinner and was waiting for me.... I kept trying not to set my romantic hopes toooo high, it was the first time he had planned something and I knew it wouldn't be elaborate. (Don't worry about that statement sounding rude to my husband, he would totally agree with me, you can ask him)

13. I walked up to the door, and Mr. Love-of-my-Life opened it with the cutest grin in the world and said "Happy Birthday" He had the table all set with candles and everything (just like I had hoped for)!

14. After I put all my stuff down he hugged me and asked me if I was hungry. I said, "not exactly yet" and he said, "me neither, lets eat!" He had planned too early for the dinner to be done because he was too excited. eeeeeeee.

15. He made gourmet bacon pasta, as I am calling it, and I was SO impressed. It had bacon, red bell pepper, green olive, and a bunch of seasonings and spices in a butter sauce. He tried extra hard to make sure it didn't have anything that could potentially hurt my tummy (there are a lot these days) and it was SO delicious. You would like it too and be just as impressed as I was. It was full of flavor. Yum.

16. He made a special playlist to play during dinner, with a bunch of our favorite romantic music.

17. He told me I wasn't allowed to do any dishes.

18. He watched Sense and Sensibility with me! The first Jane Austen that he's seen, and he paid attention the whole time and actually followed the story. You can ask him what he thought about it, I won't give it away. :) But seriously, how lucky am I?!

19. Next we ate cake (pronounced "kehk"). Our monthaversary is today, and we were instructed by our cake lady (Barbara at Valentine's Cakes) to eat our wedding cake topper for our one MONTH-aversary rather than our one year. We have plans tonight with family, so we decided to eat it for my birthday. yuuuuuuuummy.

20. We ended the evening with catching up on the most recent episode of Psych - basically our favorite show EVER. Corey always predicts the ending way ahead. Smarty pants.

21. He didn't give me a gift this year (the dinner was my gift) because of our financial situation, but the dinner and quality time together was better than any gift he's ever given me before. :)

22. The only thing I missed about past birthdays was Dr. Plew sitting down at the piano with a flourish, and leading whatever choir was in front of him at the time in a well-harmonized Happy Birthday.

23. I have the best husband in the world and while my birthday had its "everyday" moments, it was such a happy and relaxed birthday! And this blog post is pretty cheesy, but I don't care. Maybe it's 'cause of all the bad-for-me food I've had in the last 3 days. hehe.

Comfy

So we've almost been married for 1 month, and I have officially picked one word that describes our marriage so far: "comfy..."
... or "comfortable" if you prefer a more formal vocabulary word. But I think the informality of the word "comfy" is exactly the point. And it looks cute typed out.

Of course, not everything is comfy. Our financial situation is anything but comfy. Corey's lack of job is not comfy. Our little house has some comfy points, but the little sink is not comfy... the lack of doors is not comfy... the neighbors are not comfy...

But us? We are comfy. Comfy in our love and trust for each other. Comfy in the Lord's sovereignty over our future. Comfy getting to hug each other as long as we want. Comfy visiting family together. Comfy praying together. Comfy laughing at having frozen pizza and mac 'n cheese over and over.

*Sigh* - cause that's a comfy sound.